Megs: Hello and welcome back to episode three of Women's Wellness Wednesday. You are here with Megs and joining me every week is your beautiful Rihanna. Hello, how are you?
Rhiannon: Hello, hello hello, hello. I am good. How are you?
Megs: I'm great, thank you. I am great. I'm so excited for tonight. So I am the least prepared I've ever been for one of these episodes, and that is purely because Rihanna is going to take the driver's seat for this one. And we've got a really awesome, practical, real life episode, right? So we're not talking about topical things, they're not talking about wash trending. We have a very incredibly amazing expert here that is going to talk us through. Two of the things that we talk about all the time, which is PCOS or PMOS, and then endometriosis. So you're going to hear from a naturopath exactly what to do, what to look for, when to get help, all of the things for both of the beautiful things that we get to deal with every single day. So I'm gonna shush and I'm gonna leave it over to you.
Rhiannon: Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to make this a really practical, like you were just saying, really practical. So someone can listen to this even a couple of times. Literally take notes. Like I'll actually almost want you to study this episode, especially the PMOS girls is gonna be a bunch of really practical information, genuinely, that you will want to take notes. Okay.
Megs: Yes.
Rhiannon: And I've gonna I've got some other things like some resources and stuff that I can send your way as well. So I really wanna I'm gonna talk the PMOS stuff first. Again, that's PCOS being renamed to encompass the more metabolic condition that it actually is. Because you can have PMOS without having cis on your ovaries, and that's what the old name would really be defined as is cis on your ovaries. You can have no cysts, which are not cysts, but whatever, on your ovaries and still have PMOS. So that's sort of a reason that the name got shifted over, just because it represents the condition way more appropriately. and then with that, there's a whole chain reaction from that as well. So I really just want to have kind of like titled this from symptoms to healing. Right. So
Megs: Like it.
Rhiannon: You like that one?
Megs: The journey. I'm here for it.
Rhiannon: So yeah. So we're starting with the symptoms that would often be classed as PMOS, right? So number one is irregular cycles. That's gonna be the the biggest red flag to okay, this looks like it could be PMOS. But just because you have irregular cycles doesn't mean you have PMOS. Just like I will say later, just because you have period pain doesn't mean you have endo, right? There is so much more nuance to both of these things that you need to dive into. And there is a limit to where you can you can do a lot yourself, but there's gonna be a limit to that. so irregular cycles is number one. And when I say irregular cycles, I'm talking cycles over 35 days, or irregular in the sense that you can't predict it to within like two to three days. But for the PMOS girlies, I'm talking it's probably gonna be more extreme than that. For myself,
Megs: Yeah, wow.
Rhiannon: it went from non existent to a hundred days. The next month it might or the next month, lol. Ha, not really. The next cycle, if you can even call it that, was maybe in the sixties. And then it would shoot back up to the nineties. So I'd be missing months every now and then and like it would go from yeah, wild. That's it doesn't have to be that dramatic. But it can be like 29, 42, 36, that's dramatic enough, right? So irregular cycles and the ability to lose weight. Okay. Irregular cycles and facial hair. So that classic hairstuism is what the term is called. Irregular cycles and hair thinning on the head. Okay. And then irregular cycles and acne. So you do not have to have all of these, but you might find that you can see a pattern. You might find that you're like, yes, I have regular cycles, and no matter how much I go to the gym and eat the best food, weight doesn't shift. Right? That's a big enough clinical picture to start investigating down the PMLS path for me. That's absolutely enough, right? So They're the symptoms that would sort of begin that. And then there's the testing. So I do have a free resource. I'm gonna go through it now as well, but I have a free resource on my Instagram. So head over there, just DM me, and I can just send you all the things. so you have something like tangible. Print it out. I think one of them's a video. Watch that, do all the things. and there's a really it's really important to test. In order. So I think I said this last week is insulin resistance is like 90% of the women with PMOS will have insulin resistance. I will go and talk about exactly what that is. But insulin resistance is the most common. So that's the thing you have to test for first. If you don't have insulin resistance, then we start going down the list, right? And there are four main causes: insulin resistance, post pill, so you've just come off the pill, inflammation. stress. Stress is the very last one. It's the least seen, but it's still there and it still can be a cause. It just looks different. That PMOS picture looks different. But because 90% of women have the classic insulin resistant PCOS, we're gonna look for that first. Okay. And then if it's not there, we cut that out, we go to the next one. But that's always likely going to be it. So The blood tests that you need to order because essentially PMOS is a condition of elevated androgens. Androgens are what we call it's the group name for specific hormones, and they're like the male hormones. So you've got your testosterone, you got the SH not SHBG, you got DHEAs is another one, and something called, I can never say it, androstenidine or something, whatever. I can write a list.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: For you. but they're the main ones. So if you're seeing that your testosterone, slash free testosterone, your androstenodyne, or your DHEA, either any one of them or all of them might be elevated. And you've got irregular cycles, okay. Well, now we've got a PCOS picture. Now we need to investigate, okay, but why are they elevated? Because hormones are only ever reacting. Right, hormones don't just decide one day they're going to go high or low. They're reacting to something deeper. So you've got to find out what that deeper thing is. Now, so we're getting our testosterone, free testosterone tested, androstenodyne, DHEAs, SHBG, which is sex hormone binding globulin, which essentially means if this is low, I would be very surprised if your testosterone wasn't high. Because SHBG is essentially like a little a little Pac-Man for testosterone. It goes and grabs it and exits it through the liver through excretory pathways. If we have low SHBG, then we haven't got enough Pac-Man to go and get the testosterone. So the testosterone is staying and it's just recirculating and it's just chilling in the body and it's causing some shit. Is this making sense?
Megs: It is making so much sense. I I have so many questions. I just like want to leave them till the end though because I don't want to like interrupt your flow because tip I'm like, holy shit. I guess again, from the really high level knowledge I have of this, I'm like, okay, well, there's three things that I know about it. And it's like, yeah, you can't lose weight and your irregular cycles. But again, in my head, because I'm like endo-tainted, I'm like irregular to me is like short cycles. So I'm like talking. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen days. I'm like shit, sixty days? Night like what the hell? So already, even
Rhiannon: Mm-hmm.
Megs: though I'm in this world, I am like, I didn't even consider that or know about that. So this is amazing.
Rhiannon: Right, it's a completely different condition. Yeah. Two completely, totally different things. Okay, so we've got the androgen category and then SHBG being the excretatory little hormone that helps to get rid of it. If that's low, that's that's a signal. Okay. Now the next thing you need to get tested is fasting insulin. This might be a bit of a tricky one to get your doctor to agree to, but you need to push it. You absolutely have to get that tested. The reason for that is because of what I've already said. Insulin resistance is the major driver of PMOS. You cannot test insulin resistance through glucose alone. And that's what they'll want to test for. And I'll explain all of that in a second. You can Through liver enzymes, but that again is complicated. I wanted to make this as easy for you as possible as someone who is just trying to figure their own shit out, trying to do it themselves a little bit just to get some answers, do as much as they can themselves, and then progress from there. So if your doctor's saying no to fasting insulin, actually DM me and I can give you a bit of a backdoor way to get it.
Megs: Well,
Rhiannon: You'll absolutely be able to get it. So Fasting insulin needs to be tested. You'll need a liver panel as well. So that's like your liver enzymes, just a general liver panel. You ask that from your doctor, they'll do the right thing with that. A glucose panel is going to be necessary as well. And then we've got CRP, which is an inflammatory marker. And then we've got vitamin D and zinc. So I'm going to go through that list again if you're taking notes. So testosterone and free testosterone, androstenidine. Type that into Google and it will come out with the correct spelling. D H E A S, so D-H-E-A's, S H B G, Fasting Insulin, Liver Panel, Glucose Panel, CRP, Vitamin D, and zinc. Okay, that's the list. Now. If your fasting insulin is eight or above, it looks like that's your root cause. Okay. So if it's at a four, insulin resistance is not your root cause. You need to keep diving deeper and figuring out what is driving it. My best guess after that would be inflammation. So fasting insulin, eight or above. Not great. Liver panel. If you have any elevated liver enzymes, so like that's ALT, AST, even bilirubin sometimes can be elevated, then you've got liver work to do. And I can explain a little bit later how the liver actually has a lot of impact into all of this as well. Then we've got glucose, okay, blood sugars, how your body is processing all of that. CRP. Now CRP is an inflammatory marker. This ideally is zero. Places, so pathology labs like it changes often with the different pathology labs, but again, ideally it's less than five. but if it's showing kind of anything, like even like a one or a two, then there is some inflammation there. Again, it might not be a massive driver. and that CRP is only really. It's only it it's not definitive. It's not the only way to measure inflammation. You can have it a relatively fine CRP, so C reactive protein, but we run a gut test and your we can see that your gut has a lot of inflammation going on. Okay. So
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: your CRP is not the only test to run for inflammation, even if it comes back with one or zero, there might still be an inflammatory picture. So we can't really put too much trust. I guess into that is just an easy, cheap blood marker that's easy to run. You know, we can get a bit of an information at the start of that. I've included vitamin D and zinc as well, because these are really, really important nutrients to use or to be aware of that have a massive impact on ovulation. Because if we have regular cycles, well, then our ovulation is being impacted. And it might just be that our The whole process doesn't have enough vitamin D or zinc to actually work effectively. So ovulate effectively, all of that. And that could be a big reason as to why your ovulation is irregular. Okay. It could be just a nutrient fix. So it's good to look at vitamin D and zinc. Ideally, you want your vitamin D to be between 80 and 100, and you want your zinc to be between 14 and 26.
Megs: Wow. So I mean, I've heard this before. Like when I was going through my IVF stuff, I had to take I got a vitamin D shot, I wanna say, I'm pretty sure. And I had to take zinc as well. But it's we're c all quite vitamin D deficient, aren't we? 'Cause like sit inside all day and nobody see the sun. So yeah, I I did I've heard that.
Rhiannon: Yeah, vitamin D also, I could go on a
Megs: Ha ha
Rhiannon: about that one. vitamin D, we need our skin to be absorbing it from the sun. Ways that stops is one, covering up. Two, sunscreen. Okay, sunscreen literally stops it. I'm not saying go and be a dickhead and lay out in the sun for hours in the middle of summer. Please don't do that. I can tell you how I do it, and I don't really wear sunscreen because I'm not being silly in the sun. If I am out if I know I'm gonna be out there for a long time, well then I'll get my particular sunscreen I like and I'll be sun smart like that. But just because I'm gonna go out and lay in the sun for 15 minutes, I'm not putting sunscreen on. So I start that early in the season, just like when the sun starts to shine, I just get my skin out for like no more than 10 minutes to start with, because we've just been covering up for the winter, right? Your your skin needs to get used to it. So it's just little increments like that. Throughout the day, I might go and lay out for you know 10 minutes or whatever. And then you naturally start feeling into like extending that time. and then by the end of the summer, like I my body's good to be out there for about an hour, no sunscreen. It's fine. Like you build it up over time. And because I'm not blocking my skin with sunscreen. Then the vitamin D is actually able to be absorbed. Like the sun does its thing, the skin receptors, all blah, blah, blah. We actually, that's a good way that you're actually effectively going to get vitamin D. Just because you're in the sun, if you're wearing sunscreen, the vitamin D actually, it's it's like a repellent, that sunscreen. It's not absorbing into your skin. Sunny's also not great for vitamin D absorption because.
Megs: Really?
Rhiannon: Yeah, your eyes need to see the light and need to register that the skin is coming into contact with the sun. So it helps the processes. If you're right, if you're blocking it with your eyes, you're darkening that. Your brain's not registering, it's not sending the signals to your skin to do what it needs to do. So chances are burn might happen easier. Or there's just Very it's less absorption of vitamin D. I don't want to say none, you would still get some, but sunny's have an impact on that as well. So there's my vitamin D little microphone moment.
Megs: My God. my God. I see this is why because it's almost like psychologically your your body realizes that you've got something tinting your view. So you know s you're not If you look at your skin through sunglasses, it's a different shade. And if you look at the sun through sunglasses, it's not as bright. So yeah, it's not just this reminds me literally to go back to when we were fucking cave people. We didn't have fancy sunscreens and we didn't have, but we prepared our bodies exactly what you just said, which is why I spend my winters in the Gold Coast. Because then all
Rhiannon: Mm-hmm.
Megs: year round, mate, I can be out the sun forever and not burn. Like in you know, I'm going to do not take my skin advice, please, because I am not. I but I am sun smart in the way that I'm very well aware of how long I can sit outside for indirect sunlight before I have to go and move into the shade to give my body a break.
Rhiannon: Exactly. And it is really good for you to be out in the sun, bare skin, as at least 30% of your body, so all arms, all legs, just you know, as much as you can so that your body can absorb that. It's really important. Yeah, because we are vitamin D deficient, and then vitamin D is it's more hormone than vitamin in our body. Like it it is so important. For fertility, it is important for the immune system, it is important for our gut health, it is there is it's insane, right? So if we're if we're deficient, no wonder we're also finding ourselves maybe a little bit more sick.
Megs: Mm.
Rhiannon: Vitamin D is really goddamn important. So yeah. It's like just give yourself a little challenge. Like at the start, or like maybe once a year. Medicare will only usually allow you to get vitamin D unpaid for once a year. But like just test yourself each year and then like see how your vitamin D is after sort of each summer and see if it's better than the previous summer based on sun safe habits, but also v vitamin D aware.
Megs: Do know what? We need to overhaul the whole slip slop slap slogan because I feel like
Rhiannon: Thank you.
Megs: this like us, our generation, are going to benefit it negatively in our vitamin D health because we were told the second you get out in the sun, you better be covered in zinc sunscreen and all the things, and you must be covered head to toe like a fucking beekeeper.
Rhiannon: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a responsible way to do it and then there's an irresponsible way to do it. Right. So if if you're if you know you're going to be out in the sun with no shade, whatever, layer the fuck up, people. Like don't be a wicked. But
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: if you can monitor it enough for yourself, so it's only going to be, you know, you can help go through the process and you can do it really intentionally. Beautiful. Please do that, actually. Thank you so much.
Megs: Can't do
Rhiannon: yeah. Let's go. Let's continue. So right, insulin resistance. I actually really want to explain what this is and how it has an impact on and how it essentially can cause PCOS. So when we eat anything that has gluc, that's anything that's going to be turned into glucose. So that's carbohydrates, that's sugar, that's fruit, that's lollies like anything that is not pure protein, pure fat, okay, that's gonna have some level of carbohydrate in it. Our body then only wants a certain amount of that sugar, because it'll all get turned to glucose, and then that's what our body uses for fuel, glucose. And then all that glucose is chilling in our bloodstream, right? But we don't want too like high amounts. So just say we've had a really carb-heavy meal. We've got a lot of glucose that's chilling in our bloodstream. Our pancreas sends, just gets this signal, okay, we've got a lot of sugar here. We need to do something about that. Right? It sends out its little army of insulin. Insulin, again, it's like another Pac-Man. It goes and collects all of the glucose that it needs to, not all of it, but enough to bring the levels down back to like a chill level of maybe like the four mark, right? Again, that's the ideal three or four on a blood test, is the ideal insulin. So it goes and Pac-Mans it, brings it back into liver cells, muscle cells. Okay, and it stores glucose there. If over time the insulin has had to work too hard, for whatever reason, this can genetics come into this, just eating patterns come into this, but it's not always. It's not always you eat too much sugar. It's actually not as simple as that. So many reasons, okay? If for whatever reason insulin has had to work too hard over too long, the cells essentially start to become resistant to insulin. So the insulin that's being sent out from the pancreas, it's not doing as an effective job anymore as it once did. So now it's sending out the same amount, but the brain's still registering, we've still got too much glucose in our bloodstream. So the pancreas sends out more. Okay? So that's why we're s we'll see an elevation on a blood test. Because now we've ideally ordered four, but now we're insulin's still doing a thing. It's still It's moving its way up and up and up and up and up to do the job it once did that it could use this much for. Now it needs this
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: much. So then it starts to increase because it needs to have triple the amount that it used to to do the same job. Okay.
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: The cells are now becoming insulin resistant. That then causes an issue with ovarian signaling all of it. That can push, so high insulin can push up high androgens. So your testosterone, all of that. Okay. So these two work really closely together that high insulin equals high androgens. High androgens equals ovari ovaries are just going a little bit haywire and it's the signalling's not happening properly and ovulation is impacted, therefore your cycles are irregular.
Megs: Right. Can I I don't know
Rhiannon: Does that make sense?
Megs: if this is the right time to ask this particular question, but this is something I read in a book once and it's just like popped back into my head. Is fasting to support insulin resistance and therefore PCOS. What's your
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: your hmm, I'm getting a hmm from you?
Rhiannon: Fasting is an interesting one. Only because it would not be what I would recommend for a PCOS picture, PMOS
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: picture, because the nature of it is we don't want big spikes in insulin. Now, if we fast, the nature of that is there's a small window, we eat lots, so there's constant food going in, which means our insulin's constantly spiking, right? And then like it it you know, we stop eating and then we go back into like this. I'm not explaining it very very well, but I don't love it because we need those consistent meals because even even more than just insulin resistance, it's hormone health. Like our body actually needs a good amount of food. And the last thing you want to be doing is starving yourself. in a in a way like you want to be starting your day with with protein, a good amount of like hearty fats, proteins to r essentially signal to your body and your hormones that everything's safe. Like our the female body is really responsive to safe and unsafe. Okay. You will be able to find people that say fasting epic. If you had a regular cycle, I could talk to you more about fasting. Right? If you have an irregular cycle like the PMOS picture, I'm not interested. I think there's way more we can do dietary wise to get in what your body actually needs. If you had a regular cycle, so if if anyone's listening that has a regular cycle and is interested in fasting, you fast in the first half of your cycle, because that's when your body's the most resilient. You do not fast ovulation into your period. You don't fast in that half of your cycle because your body, you don't want your body thinking you're in a stressful environment because stress will always win over reproduction. So if it's registering stress, your ovulation is going to be impacted in some way. You might look like you're ovulating fine, but your quality of ovulation. Could actually be really impacted. And if you're on a fertility journey, then that can lead to infertility, right? For that particular month. So if you have a regular cycle, then in that, you know, from when period ends for maybe the next week, week and a half, up until just before ovulation, I would say, perfect time to fast and play around. Okay. You'll also find that that's the part of your cycle you're the least hungry. So it's probably going to be easier to fast in that part of your cycle as well. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I've always just heard it. And I like as you know, with my Crohn's stuff, which is completely separate to all of this, it's very different advice. So it's so funny that, you know, it
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: is, it's so never use a one size fits all, especially when it comes to this stuff because it's so personal. It's so personal.
Rhiannon: It's so it's it's so personal. And even like when I get into a little bit more into this, it's it was actually kind of hard for me to keep it so generic because I'm like, yeah, but what's your body doing? Like what's happening for you? So anyway, I hope the insulin resistance stuff made that made sense.
Megs: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Rhiannon: Awesome. Okay. I also want to say here as well that if you don't find Clear answers in your blood tests. You're like, my my insulin, it's like a six, it's or it's a seven. My androgens are not high, like, but you still got irregular cycles. You need to keep investigating. There is a reason for those irregular cycles, and you might not fit the PMOS picture. You might fit a thyroid picture. Right? PMOS is not the only reason for irregular cycles. There are so many other reasons. So If you I'm gonna really dive into just the insulin resistant part of it because most women with PMS will have insulin resistance. So if that's you, if you've got your bloods back, if it's a pretty clear I'm insulin resistant, you need to start learning about blood sugar and how to regulate that within your body. You can, if you want to, if you've got a spare, I think they're maybe like a hundred bucks, maybe just over a hundred dollars, you can get a continuous glucose monitor, which is what type one diabetics use. I would say type two as well. It's just like your little thing on your arm and it can send a signal to your phone and you can see how your body is responding, how your glucose and all of that is responding for two weeks, I think it stays on, to what you're eating. So if you're going to do that, you keep a diary of everything you eat and you the timing so you can correlate it and you can look at what is spiking you the most. Because that's a thing. If you have insulin resistance, 100% reversible. So if you've got type 2 diabetes, 100% reversible, that's an insulin resistance picture, right? And you can start to see some really big impacts in like 12 weeks. It can be really quick, right? But the whole goal is to keep everything as stable as possible. You don't want insulin spiking. So I'm gonna give you some hacks for how to help that not happen, right? First one is actually not even on my list, but lower the amount of snacking. that you do. Cause every time you're eating, your insulin's going up. Right. So it's have really good quality main meals. If you need a snack, great. Be smart about it. Have a like a like a protein based snack, like actual protein please, not like fake protein. and like veggie, like fibrous things or like nuts, fats, those sorts of things. Great snacks. So, you know, be particular with that. Number two, if you're going to have a carbohydrate heavy meal, like you're gonna have a some pasta, send it. I don't care, do it. I don't want you to not have carbohydrates. That's something I would never say to my PCOS people is cut out carbohydrates. It's definitely what gets told to them, but I would never say that. It's about being smart with your carbohydrates. So if you're gonna have a carbohydrate heavy meal, you're gonna have bowl of pasta, just saying. Ideally, you would have plenty of like fats and proteins with it. Or, and or you can do like a snack beforehand of like some carrots and veggies and like fibrous things. The reason for this is if we think about when we eat, it goes through sort of like our our gut. And then we have this lining, we intestinal lining. Now, if we're Like straight away giving it like orange juice, to say that's a really extreme example because it's really sugar-filled, right? Then there is essentially nothing stopping that orange juice going straight into your bloodstream. It's just on an empty stomach, bang, it's in. If, for example, you had like some veggies, like just some raw veggies you're snacking on, or you had some like three egg omelette or you've even had some like Avo, eggs, sourdough, all of that. And then after that you have your orange juice. Essentially what's happened is the proteins, the fibers, the fats have created like a barrier. Right? So it's
Megs: Tchau.
Rhiannon: not as easy for that sugar to get out of your gut into your bloodstream.
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: Right? So then you would see if you're using a CGM, that continuous glucose monitor, you would actually see in an average person that the spike wouldn't be as significant. It would lower that spike. That's what you want if you've got an insulin resistance picture. You want to keep things as low and steady as possible. Okay. I will say that it's actually if you're if you're really seriously committed to this insulin resistance, all that, I would actually highly suggest a CGM because everybody responds differently. So I
Megs: Mm.
Rhiannon: can give you these hacks, but one of them might not work well. And you, it could be the one that you find the easiest, and you're like, yes, sweet, I'm still doing heaps of stuff for my insulin resistance, but it might not be as effective for you and your makeup, right? Second is move your body as much as possible. possible after eating. Ideally, at least after dinner, because essentially, I mean, the way I look at just my life and other people around me is that's probably the one we move the least after.
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: Breakfast, we're kind of like, cool, let's go on with our day where we're walking around, we're doing things, we're moving our body. Lunch, kind of the same depending on what you're doing in the middle of the day. But dinner, you have dinner, you sit down on the couch and you watch something. You're not Really moving, or you might go and read something. You're very sedentary usually after dinner. The reason for this is because our muscle requires glucose. So our muscle requires the sugar we're eating. So we've just had a big meal, or we've just had food. If we move our body, our muscles are firing. Our muscles are going to eat up that glucose.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: And then our brain doesn't have to send the signal to our pancreas to send out insulin. Right? So our muscles are doing the job. We don't need the insulin to pump out as much that time.
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: Does that make sense?
Megs: It does. I have can I ask another question on that one?
Rhiannon: Yes.
Megs: so you I'm because I'm the earliest eater ever because I I will eat early because I again, it's a Crohn's thing. I l don't like to have anything in my tummy if I can avoid it by the time I go to bed. So I'll typically have d like dinner and by sort of four o'clock ish. and then that way I've got a good solid three to four hours before I'm going to sleep. It how does that affect what we're talking about here in terms of how close you eat before you go to sleep, in terms of letting your body rest and not have to kind of do the extra I don't know. Did so I guess my question actually is, is it just as hard for your pancreas to then go and get all of the sugar whilst you're sleeping? or is it like same, same?
Rhiannon: The pancreas and the insulin, it's pretty quick. So it registers the sugar or the glucose in your system. And if you've moved your body within that half an hour, that's kind of what you want to be doing, even if it's 10 minutes. So it's it's not something that's gonna do the job three hours after you've eaten. It's kind of doing it quite quickly within the hour. Yeah. But I also am like a huge advocate for eating well before you go to bed. And if we're talking fasting, that's probably my favorite recommendation is early dinner. Breakfast whenever is convenient, really. But like ideally the later side, like an eight o'clock. You know, if you're having like a six o'clock, five o'clock dinner, give your body heaps of time to actually do what it needs to do digestion-wise. That's that would be the the only kind of fasting I think I'd recommend for the this kind of picture. Yeah. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah, perfect. Yeah.
Rhiannon: But definitely eating as early like Eating early is is convenient for you, or is is that's possible for you as well. But yeah, if it's super not possible, don't I wouldn't stress there's so many other things that again are move the needle more than a big fasting window from dinner to breakfast. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: Awesome. yeah, so that another one that's really quite interesting and wild that it works is like a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water before meals.
Megs: Wow.
Rhiannon: The science backs that that has an effect on lowering insulin. Wild Wild.
Megs: God, it's like I'm getting like PTSD from where my mum used to like neck a a a tablespoon of it every single morning 'cause straight. And it like the
Rhiannon: Straight? Wrong?
Megs: face that she would make, I'm like, bro, I don't know why you do this. It looks horrible.
Rhiannon: And that's the thing, that's not necessary. Put it in some water. Like, yeah. Even
Megs: Yeah, yeah. Psycho.
Rhiannon: yeah, put it in water. It's way easier to drink. and you can hardly taste it. You don't need much.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: But that has a really potent effect. Again, it might that's why the CGMs are awesome, because you can really see if it makes a big difference for you. Or you might need to do a little bit more apple cider vineyard. Whatever. Play around with it. And the final one is actually if you aren't exercising, one, start moving your body. But on top of that, if you already are exercising and you're doing more cardio based stuff, I need you to switch that. It needs to be resistance. Because muscle is the best, I call it an organ at this point. It is such an important thing to have for all women. But really to help with insulin resistance. Cause like I was saying before, the muscle, if it's moving after food, if you're actually like using your muscle so like car phrases, or you cut laps around your lounge room for 10 minutes. Like that's how simple it can be. Or you just walk up and down your street a couple of times. Whatever you need to do to move your body for 10 to 15 minutes. Literally. Yeah,
Megs: Yeah. Get a walking pad. Those things are legendary.
Rhiannon: right. Anything like that, just getting your muscles firing, that's eating up the glucose. The more muscle you have, the more muscles that are firing, right? And the more glucose is needed into the muscles. So that means your insulin, your pancreas doesn't have to send as much insulin out. And the other cool thing about PMOS girls is we put a muscle really fucking easy. Really fucking because it's the testosterone, people. There is, right? And it is saying that only clicked recently for me. I remember doing like a Back with my roommates when I was in like very early 20s, we all went to the same gym and we did like this 10-week challenge and all that sort of stuff. And right back in the day. And yeah,
Megs: yes. Was it called the Katie Body something by chance?
Rhiannon: that was involved, but not the this particular one. so we did like the classic the testing of like your muscle mass and your bone mass and that that test where you I know everyone's done that. And by the end of the 10 weeks, I had put on Like three kilos of muscle. Right,
Megs: Amazing.
Rhiannon: right. How cool. But my girlfriends had put like had not got anywhere near that number. They'd had awesome fat loss. Awesome fat loss. But they it wasn't as easy for them to put on the muscle. For me, that was thanks to the thing that was making me have no periods. Like, yeah. So there are definite benefits. Another really quick side note is the science is showing that PMOS girls Go through menopause later. Love that. Love that for us. Yeah,
Megs: love that for you. Love that for you.
Rhiannon: so how good. yeah, so so many little things that you can do because again, insulin resistance is completely reversible. And if that's
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: your driver, it's so workable, so workable. Now I want to talk about supplements, like key supplementation, because I also did a bit of a research scroll hole with this. Like what is being recommended? Right? And I've got a yes list and I've got a fucking no list as well. Like, please. Yeah, right. Circa last week's conversation. Like
Megs: Is anything influences promoting?
Rhiannon: now. Okay. Yes to magnesium, specifically. Taking magnesium glycinate, 300 milligrams a day at night, ideally, because it helps with sleep as well and stress and all the things. When you're reading a magnesium label, you're looking at magnesium equivalent. It's usually like the last magnesium section on the labels. It's equivalent magnesium, and it'll usually, depending on the tablet you're taking or the powder, often it's like 150. So if it's a tablet they usually sit around 150, you take two. Okay. As a general base, everybody would massively benefit from magnesium. Okay. That helps with insulin signaling. It helps with so many things. Nervous system, that's often a part of PMOS as well. General nervous system, all the things.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Vitamin D, if you're low, so I would say if you're below 70. I would be recommending like it just 2000 IU. So if you're good doing like a like a spray, that's often like two sprays, right? but again,
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: it it says it all on the label. Just read it like one spray equals 1000 IU is usually like one tablet or one spray or whatever. The most effective in the research for PMOS is something called inositol. This is incredible for not just blood sugar. It's a huge in the blood sugar insulin game, but also it has a direct impact on the quality of your eggs. Right? So it's doing like that's only two things. It does so many things. So it's actually such a good quality, kind of all-rounder supplement to be taking, but specifically for insulin resistance. You want to be taking four to six grams per day. Okay, it's a larger one. So, and that can be split between two doses, morning and night. So, like two to three times two, right? And then something else called NAC, N anacetylcysteine. This is also going to come into the endoconversation as well. Really awesome. And the science is saying it has big impact on the pain in the endo. side of things. You want to be doing at least 800 milligrams per day with this one. This is big to help with liver clearance
Megs: Well.
Rhiannon: and all the things there. And again, if we've got high levels of hormones like testosterone, we need to be able to effectively get rid of them. Okay, and that happens through our liver. If we've got low SHBG like I was talking about, then that's not happening properly. We need to work on the liver. So a really quick easy supplement is NAC. with that. again, super generic and you would find that sort of stuff anyway. But again, for you, if you're wanting more like particular, like eyes on your case, because you might need these, but you might need something else that's going work even better because something in particular is happening in in your stuff, you know? So start here, but also it's just a really good idea to get that one-on-one help as well.
Megs: Sally.
Rhiannon: The no list. I might pe hm so I have strong feelings about my no list, but often people like a a lot of naturopaths would disagree with me. So this is very
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: yeah, this is just this isn't me. Okay. The first thing that comes up everywhere, I'm just sort of write a note to remind me, that comes up is berberine. Berberine is a herb. Well it's a part of a herb. And it is a really, it's really good with insulin resistance and blood sugar regulation and weight loss and all of that, but it's also a really potent antimicrobial. Which means it's acting on the gut and it starts to strip away microbes. That can be good for a short amount of time. Okay, because we might have some harmful bacteria that's having a great old time in there, causing some havoc. But too long on something like berberine, not good. Because it starts to act kind of like a bit of an antibiotic. It starts to strip the good shit too.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Right? We need a good microbiome for good insulin signaling. Right? There is such a big connection with the gut for every single freaking thing. So we do not want to be taking something like berberine long term, I would say 10 weeks max, and then cut it. If it's not fixing anything, doing anything, pivot. Do something else.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Right? spearmint is something else. Like I love me a herb, spearmint's delicious, but they're saying people are saying that spearmint's great to help get rid of this this facial hair and help to lower androgens. But people are recommending spearmint tea.
Megs: No.
Rhiannon: That's not enough. Like if we're going to use spearmint, I'm going to give it to you in a herbal formula that's potent and it's
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: concentrated. But if you want to drink spearmint tea like three cups a day, go for it because you enjoy it. But I would not be suggesting that that's going to be like the silver bullet. Right. A lot of people a lot of Ts are starting to come out with like, you know, the PMOS Ts and PC OSTs and right.
Megs: Thank you.
Rhiannon: Yeah. I don't I was talking I was actually having a conversation with another naturopath friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. And because we've both come across this other this other tea. I don't know the name of it or anything, but it was bizarre. I'm like none of well talking like none of these herbs make sense. Like what what? Like it was so
Megs: For God's sake. Of course they don't.
Rhiannon: and like how much does that tea cost?
Megs: N no shit.
Rhiannon: Like right? It pisses me off. Anyway. Another one, probiotics. Probiotics, probiotics, too general. Way too general. If you're gonna go and take a probiotic, I would prefer you to go to have probiotic rich foods, like your sauerkrauts, your kim cheese, your fermented anything. Anything fermented. Have that. It's gonna be way better than any random generic probiotic you're gonna get from the chemist. Please don't get your probiotics from the chemist, unless it's activated probiotics. That's a good brand.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: but even then, I'm like, is it actually what you need? Maybe not. You know? And then the last one is another herb that I did touch on last week, but it's called Vitex. This is so sneakily, maybe not sneakily, but it is so often seen in so many PMOS supplements, like herbal concoction tablets. If it didn't have the Vitex in there, I would be all for it. But it's the Vitex and I'm like, never take it. Because the nature of the hormone levels, Vitex can essentially push something even further out. So something called lutinizing hormone, which is often already elevated in PMOS, Vitex can make that even more elevated. Because people see Vitex and it's a lot of the marketing around it is regulating cycles. Yes, it can do that. But for a very specific person, if someone came to me and they're like, I had epic. To the day cycles, and then this particular event happened and now they haven't been the same since. So an event being like maybe a stressful event or something like that that haven't been the same since. Perfect candidate for something like Vitex. Right? If everything was normal, something happened that was weird, and then since it's been dysregulated, I would go down the Vitex route because it helps just re-regulate some things. But if their periods have never been regular, If we've got a whole lot of other shit we're dealing with, Vitex is not on my list at all. Right? Vitex is also called Chase Tree. So Chase Tree, Vitex, same thing. Look out for that. If you're taking like a multi-something herbal supplement for PCOS, just check it doesn't have Vitex on it. Yeah.
Megs: And maybe don't take something that is aren't priceline shelves sold by a celebrity that's designed for PCLS or PMOS or anything for that matter.
Rhiannon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hot tip. Please don't do that. yes. So if you have nailed your root cause, you should be seeing results within 12 weeks.
Megs: Wow.
Rhiannon: Right? If you've nailed it, if you like clear insulin resistance, I can really see that. Okay, I'm gonna implement everything Rihanna has just talked about. That sometimes, just that dietary lifestyle adjustment. Can actually be enough. You might not even need some of those supplements. Those supplements are going to help, but they're never going to outdo everything else. They can definitely help. But make sure that your foundations are bang on first. Or at least you're you're moving in the right direction with that, right? They don't have to be perfect. But you should start to see in three months some shifts with the regularity of your cycles, all that. If you're not, you need to go back to the drawing board. Because you might not have one root cause. You might have a couple of things happening. And that's where, yeah, it can start to get a little bit more complicated. And that's where I have I have a a period review in my whole ecosystem of things. So that's what I would select if you're sort of in this phase where you're like, I've got my bloods, I don't really get it. Like they're not quite outside the the ranges, but I've got irregular periods and this is happening and or I've been trying to fix it based on what you I've just said, blah blah blah. But things aren't changing, you need to book in a period review because there's something else happening. And like screw wasting more time. Like just get the help, someone who's expert in this, and they can just tell you. So you can also take the load off yourself. I found that so much in my journey. Like I at some point I actually needed to give it over to somebody else. Like, you tell me what I need to do. I'm sick of this just constantly being in my head. So yeah, that's what I recommend for that. That's the PCOS stuff. That took a long time.
Megs: And here we are at the 52 minute mark. No, I think this is important and I definitely didn't want to rush it because I feel like even just listening to you explain what you did just then, it can be a number of things. And if you're some and like I put myself in somebody's shoes that is going like experiencing these things and is just not even sure where to start, maybe they went and saw a doctor and didn't really get heard or they didn't feel
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: heard. And they're like, then I don't have a you know, and it's like I've got all these things, like how do I do this? And that fatigue you're talking about, where you're like exhausted with yourself because you're like, My body's betraying me and these things are happening and
Rhiannon: Yep.
Megs: I don't know why. yeah, I think it's really important to to flesh all of this out. And I think another thing which should be really helpful for listeners as well, if they're sort of like like sitting here listening to you and thinking, shit, like I've I've got this and I've sort of got this, and it's like I think your advice, and I won't, you know, put words in your mouth, but it's sort of like if this is what you're expecting, just go anyway. Just seek a second opinion if you got shut down the first time, speak to someone like you, and don't be like, well, I don't have all of them, so I probably don't have PMOS. Like you like you said, it might not be, it might be the cause of something else. If your body is doing different things that it shouldn't be doing, there is a cause, right? So would your advice be, I guess, to start this off if you're brand, brand new, starting off in this journey,
Rhiannon: I am.
Megs: what is your recommendation for listeners?
Rhiannon: My recommendation is get somebody who's a professional in your corner straight away. Because otherwise you're gonna go down a million and five rabbit holes based on what Instagram and TikTok are saying, from really possibly well-meaning people who have gone through their own journey, they're like, this worked brilliantly for me. Probably not gonna do the same for you. You're a different human. You're not them. Okay. You might not actually have PMOS. You might have been told by your doctor that you do based on your symptoms, and that's the umbrella that they give you. But have they checked your thyroid? And have they re interpreted that properly? You know, so I if you're just coming to the conclusion now, you're like, fuck, actually I do have irregular periods. I it was just normal for me. I probably should look into this. Just see someone straight away. Like straight away. Because
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: it's going to cut your time way down. And you're actually possibly going to be able to get results way sooner than you would if you were trying to navigate it yourself based on social media and your own research in Chat GPT, whatever else it is. Yeah. There
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: is there is benefit to working with a real human who is working with just you.
Megs: Yes.
Rhiannon: Like what's happening for you, the person in front of them.
Megs: Yeah. And like you say, you know, everyone is so like individualized with all of our treatment. Like you and what I love and I love, love, love people posting their success stories because it gives those of us who maybe aren't there yet hope. And you're like, okay, look, you've done this and you've done this, but you know, following their steps to the letter, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, their path, you may not get the same result. In fact, it might actually be too detrimental to your health. So I think I I never like I I love jumping on a trend, don't get me wrong. But I think, yeah, with things like this I've really learnt over the years that your body is so unique and you can be standing next to like yourself and somebody with the exact same quote unquote condition. But it's not apples for apples. Like you got plenty of other shit going on that makes our body so different.
Rhiannon: Absolutely. Absolutely. Like if I like I have had insulin resistant PCOS, if I had have only gone down that road, then a lot of my healing would not have been done. Because yes, that was my major root cause, but it's not my only one. Right? So that's yeah, it's it can be super duper simple. But it can also be quite complex. It just depends on the person. I hope for everyone that it's just as easy as doing the things that I just mentioned, taking a few of the easy supplements, and you are good to go. Unfortunately, not always, which does suck. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. It does. And I and I think just to echo your point as well around the time that you because I think that's the biggest thing with anybody with a chronic illness, like I'm like the time I've lost in this health journey and the time it took me to get to a certain place and the time, the time, the time, right? So I would do anything to kind of get that time back. So now I'm so different when my body does so actually, do you know what? That's not true, because I literally gaslit myself for like twenty four hours before I went to the hospital on the weekend. So clearly I still have some work to do there, but you know, you you with understanding that yes, it sucks right now and it feels like such a shit time. Like three months, you think, my god, it's three months, but in real in relative terms, if you look back now, bro, we're in August. Like tell me where the hell this year's gone. Like three months on a healing journey, especially when you start to feel one percent better, it will fly and you'll be addicted to healing yourself.
Rhiannon: Absolutely. And that time is going to pass anyway.
Megs: Exactly.
Rhiannon: Like, do you want to be in three months' time still as confused in the weeds of it as you were three months ago, or you actually want to see some progress, even if that's just a little bit of progress? Like, absolutely.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: okay, now quickly let's do some endo stuff. okay, with the endo stuff, there is a lot of new if we're talking like from the start. Of diagnosis, it is there is a lot of new stuff coming out. Like historically, it was the only way you can get a piece of not a piece of endodiagnosis is laparoscopy, right? You have to go under the knife to get this diagnosis. That is beginning to change with other imagery, like specialized ultrasounds and symptomology pictures. Like people are essentially being given Diagnoses based on just their case, as in their symptoms. And yeah, which I think I would ask the question of what is the label going to give you. Is
Megs: U
Rhiannon: I I kind of think that it's a good thing sometimes to have an endo label, especially if it gets to the point where you got to, like you would have only ever been able to have your hysterectomy because you have an endometriosis label. Right. And if it gets to that point, you kind of want to have that backup of a label. Right. But you don't have to have an endometriosis diagnosis in order to heal your period pain. Even if it is endo, right?
Megs: Mm. Yeah.
Rhiannon: And yeah, there's there's a bit there. So first of all, I always go.
Megs: Well my thoughts, given we're like an hour in now, should we make this literally a whole PCOS PMOS episode that just gets to live on its own and has its own special place in the world? 'Cause I love the idea of yeah, the PMS
Rhiannon: Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. And then next week we can do endo and then you can be a bit more telling your story. Yeah, I like it, because we could go for two hours.
Megs: Yeah. I re Well, I love it. I just I I wanna make sure like 'cause i I guess if you're like one or either or you're sort of like, Well, I only care about the Endo stuff or only care the PCOS stuff, you know what? We're gonna do you a favor. We're going to put it all in one for you. Now all of this So it will transcribe and I'll do it a bit differently this time because I want to make sure that everything that Rand has just said is clear in the show notes and it's not just a summary. So I'll actually pop a transcript of this for you guys. So if you want to go in maybe with a even a checklist of of things, you can chuck it in ChatGPT, I'm sure, and say summarize this in a whatever. Like use the transcript to your advantage so that you can go and find out this information for your if you're interested in it. and of course we'll pop her socials in the show notes as well. But go check out the show notes if you're actually interested in this because I think this like literally pragmatically will kind of take you through the steps on how to, you know, take the first step even in your journey to yeah, to improving improving your health. So thank you for your everything tonight. My goodness me. What an episode. I I it's
Rhiannon: You're welcome. Yeah.
Megs: just it's wild to me that I am so in this world and yeah I learn so much from you every single week. I'm like Shit. That's wild. So
Rhiannon: it's so it's so nice to hear. I think sometimes like I forget how much the average person doesn't know because it's just my world. So yeah, that's nice to
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rhiannon: hear.
Megs: No, it definitely is. So we'll put all the goodness and literally the transcript straight in the show notes so you can go and download that and yeah, take out of it those supplements, and anything else that we've talked about. And of course we would love to hear how you've gotten and how you're going.
Rhiannon: Yes.
Megs: and yes, so next week we'll talk ex we'll talk about endometriosis and maybe even we might like like dip into the adenomyiosis kind of thing as well because they
Rhiannon: Yeah.
Megs: if you're up for that because yeah, I think
Rhiannon: Yeah.
Megs: having both of those suckers makes them not a fun time.
Rhiannon: Mm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Megs: Let's do it. All right. Thank you, my love.
Rhiannon: K
Megs: I'll see you next week for our fourth episode.
Rhiannon: Yay, sounds good.
Megs: Sorry to jump in over the top of you, but
Rhiannon: Hello, hello hello, hello. I am good. How are you?
Megs: I'm great, thank you. I am great. I'm so excited for tonight. So I am the least prepared I've ever been for one of these episodes, and that is purely because Rihanna is going to take the driver's seat for this one. And we've got a really awesome, practical, real life episode, right? So we're not talking about topical things, they're not talking about wash trending. We have a very incredibly amazing expert here that is going to talk us through. Two of the things that we talk about all the time, which is PCOS or PMOS, and then endometriosis. So you're going to hear from a naturopath exactly what to do, what to look for, when to get help, all of the things for both of the beautiful things that we get to deal with every single day. So I'm gonna shush and I'm gonna leave it over to you.
Rhiannon: Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to make this a really practical, like you were just saying, really practical. So someone can listen to this even a couple of times. Literally take notes. Like I'll actually almost want you to study this episode, especially the PMOS girls is gonna be a bunch of really practical information, genuinely, that you will want to take notes. Okay.
Megs: Yes.
Rhiannon: And I've gonna I've got some other things like some resources and stuff that I can send your way as well. So I really wanna I'm gonna talk the PMOS stuff first. Again, that's PCOS being renamed to encompass the more metabolic condition that it actually is. Because you can have PMOS without having cis on your ovaries, and that's what the old name would really be defined as is cis on your ovaries. You can have no cysts, which are not cysts, but whatever, on your ovaries and still have PMOS. So that's sort of a reason that the name got shifted over, just because it represents the condition way more appropriately. and then with that, there's a whole chain reaction from that as well. So I really just want to have kind of like titled this from symptoms to healing. Right. So
Megs: Like it.
Rhiannon: You like that one?
Megs: The journey. I'm here for it.
Rhiannon: So yeah. So we're starting with the symptoms that would often be classed as PMOS, right? So number one is irregular cycles. That's gonna be the the biggest red flag to okay, this looks like it could be PMOS. But just because you have irregular cycles doesn't mean you have PMOS. Just like I will say later, just because you have period pain doesn't mean you have endo, right? There is so much more nuance to both of these things that you need to dive into. And there is a limit to where you can you can do a lot yourself, but there's gonna be a limit to that. so irregular cycles is number one. And when I say irregular cycles, I'm talking cycles over 35 days, or irregular in the sense that you can't predict it to within like two to three days. But for the PMOS girlies, I'm talking it's probably gonna be more extreme than that. For myself,
Megs: Yeah, wow.
Rhiannon: it went from non existent to a hundred days. The next month it might or the next month, lol. Ha, not really. The next cycle, if you can even call it that, was maybe in the sixties. And then it would shoot back up to the nineties. So I'd be missing months every now and then and like it would go from yeah, wild. That's it doesn't have to be that dramatic. But it can be like 29, 42, 36, that's dramatic enough, right? So irregular cycles and the ability to lose weight. Okay. Irregular cycles and facial hair. So that classic hairstuism is what the term is called. Irregular cycles and hair thinning on the head. Okay. And then irregular cycles and acne. So you do not have to have all of these, but you might find that you can see a pattern. You might find that you're like, yes, I have regular cycles, and no matter how much I go to the gym and eat the best food, weight doesn't shift. Right? That's a big enough clinical picture to start investigating down the PMLS path for me. That's absolutely enough, right? So They're the symptoms that would sort of begin that. And then there's the testing. So I do have a free resource. I'm gonna go through it now as well, but I have a free resource on my Instagram. So head over there, just DM me, and I can just send you all the things. so you have something like tangible. Print it out. I think one of them's a video. Watch that, do all the things. and there's a really it's really important to test. In order. So I think I said this last week is insulin resistance is like 90% of the women with PMOS will have insulin resistance. I will go and talk about exactly what that is. But insulin resistance is the most common. So that's the thing you have to test for first. If you don't have insulin resistance, then we start going down the list, right? And there are four main causes: insulin resistance, post pill, so you've just come off the pill, inflammation. stress. Stress is the very last one. It's the least seen, but it's still there and it still can be a cause. It just looks different. That PMOS picture looks different. But because 90% of women have the classic insulin resistant PCOS, we're gonna look for that first. Okay. And then if it's not there, we cut that out, we go to the next one. But that's always likely going to be it. So The blood tests that you need to order because essentially PMOS is a condition of elevated androgens. Androgens are what we call it's the group name for specific hormones, and they're like the male hormones. So you've got your testosterone, you got the SH not SHBG, you got DHEAs is another one, and something called, I can never say it, androstenidine or something, whatever. I can write a list.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: For you. but they're the main ones. So if you're seeing that your testosterone, slash free testosterone, your androstenodyne, or your DHEA, either any one of them or all of them might be elevated. And you've got irregular cycles, okay. Well, now we've got a PCOS picture. Now we need to investigate, okay, but why are they elevated? Because hormones are only ever reacting. Right, hormones don't just decide one day they're going to go high or low. They're reacting to something deeper. So you've got to find out what that deeper thing is. Now, so we're getting our testosterone, free testosterone tested, androstenodyne, DHEAs, SHBG, which is sex hormone binding globulin, which essentially means if this is low, I would be very surprised if your testosterone wasn't high. Because SHBG is essentially like a little a little Pac-Man for testosterone. It goes and grabs it and exits it through the liver through excretory pathways. If we have low SHBG, then we haven't got enough Pac-Man to go and get the testosterone. So the testosterone is staying and it's just recirculating and it's just chilling in the body and it's causing some shit. Is this making sense?
Megs: It is making so much sense. I I have so many questions. I just like want to leave them till the end though because I don't want to like interrupt your flow because tip I'm like, holy shit. I guess again, from the really high level knowledge I have of this, I'm like, okay, well, there's three things that I know about it. And it's like, yeah, you can't lose weight and your irregular cycles. But again, in my head, because I'm like endo-tainted, I'm like irregular to me is like short cycles. So I'm like talking. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen days. I'm like shit, sixty days? Night like what the hell? So already, even
Rhiannon: Mm-hmm.
Megs: though I'm in this world, I am like, I didn't even consider that or know about that. So this is amazing.
Rhiannon: Right, it's a completely different condition. Yeah. Two completely, totally different things. Okay, so we've got the androgen category and then SHBG being the excretatory little hormone that helps to get rid of it. If that's low, that's that's a signal. Okay. Now the next thing you need to get tested is fasting insulin. This might be a bit of a tricky one to get your doctor to agree to, but you need to push it. You absolutely have to get that tested. The reason for that is because of what I've already said. Insulin resistance is the major driver of PMOS. You cannot test insulin resistance through glucose alone. And that's what they'll want to test for. And I'll explain all of that in a second. You can Through liver enzymes, but that again is complicated. I wanted to make this as easy for you as possible as someone who is just trying to figure their own shit out, trying to do it themselves a little bit just to get some answers, do as much as they can themselves, and then progress from there. So if your doctor's saying no to fasting insulin, actually DM me and I can give you a bit of a backdoor way to get it.
Megs: Well,
Rhiannon: You'll absolutely be able to get it. So Fasting insulin needs to be tested. You'll need a liver panel as well. So that's like your liver enzymes, just a general liver panel. You ask that from your doctor, they'll do the right thing with that. A glucose panel is going to be necessary as well. And then we've got CRP, which is an inflammatory marker. And then we've got vitamin D and zinc. So I'm going to go through that list again if you're taking notes. So testosterone and free testosterone, androstenidine. Type that into Google and it will come out with the correct spelling. D H E A S, so D-H-E-A's, S H B G, Fasting Insulin, Liver Panel, Glucose Panel, CRP, Vitamin D, and zinc. Okay, that's the list. Now. If your fasting insulin is eight or above, it looks like that's your root cause. Okay. So if it's at a four, insulin resistance is not your root cause. You need to keep diving deeper and figuring out what is driving it. My best guess after that would be inflammation. So fasting insulin, eight or above. Not great. Liver panel. If you have any elevated liver enzymes, so like that's ALT, AST, even bilirubin sometimes can be elevated, then you've got liver work to do. And I can explain a little bit later how the liver actually has a lot of impact into all of this as well. Then we've got glucose, okay, blood sugars, how your body is processing all of that. CRP. Now CRP is an inflammatory marker. This ideally is zero. Places, so pathology labs like it changes often with the different pathology labs, but again, ideally it's less than five. but if it's showing kind of anything, like even like a one or a two, then there is some inflammation there. Again, it might not be a massive driver. and that CRP is only really. It's only it it's not definitive. It's not the only way to measure inflammation. You can have it a relatively fine CRP, so C reactive protein, but we run a gut test and your we can see that your gut has a lot of inflammation going on. Okay. So
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: your CRP is not the only test to run for inflammation, even if it comes back with one or zero, there might still be an inflammatory picture. So we can't really put too much trust. I guess into that is just an easy, cheap blood marker that's easy to run. You know, we can get a bit of an information at the start of that. I've included vitamin D and zinc as well, because these are really, really important nutrients to use or to be aware of that have a massive impact on ovulation. Because if we have regular cycles, well, then our ovulation is being impacted. And it might just be that our The whole process doesn't have enough vitamin D or zinc to actually work effectively. So ovulate effectively, all of that. And that could be a big reason as to why your ovulation is irregular. Okay. It could be just a nutrient fix. So it's good to look at vitamin D and zinc. Ideally, you want your vitamin D to be between 80 and 100, and you want your zinc to be between 14 and 26.
Megs: Wow. So I mean, I've heard this before. Like when I was going through my IVF stuff, I had to take I got a vitamin D shot, I wanna say, I'm pretty sure. And I had to take zinc as well. But it's we're c all quite vitamin D deficient, aren't we? 'Cause like sit inside all day and nobody see the sun. So yeah, I I did I've heard that.
Rhiannon: Yeah, vitamin D also, I could go on a
Megs: Ha ha
Rhiannon: about that one. vitamin D, we need our skin to be absorbing it from the sun. Ways that stops is one, covering up. Two, sunscreen. Okay, sunscreen literally stops it. I'm not saying go and be a dickhead and lay out in the sun for hours in the middle of summer. Please don't do that. I can tell you how I do it, and I don't really wear sunscreen because I'm not being silly in the sun. If I am out if I know I'm gonna be out there for a long time, well then I'll get my particular sunscreen I like and I'll be sun smart like that. But just because I'm gonna go out and lay in the sun for 15 minutes, I'm not putting sunscreen on. So I start that early in the season, just like when the sun starts to shine, I just get my skin out for like no more than 10 minutes to start with, because we've just been covering up for the winter, right? Your your skin needs to get used to it. So it's just little increments like that. Throughout the day, I might go and lay out for you know 10 minutes or whatever. And then you naturally start feeling into like extending that time. and then by the end of the summer, like I my body's good to be out there for about an hour, no sunscreen. It's fine. Like you build it up over time. And because I'm not blocking my skin with sunscreen. Then the vitamin D is actually able to be absorbed. Like the sun does its thing, the skin receptors, all blah, blah, blah. We actually, that's a good way that you're actually effectively going to get vitamin D. Just because you're in the sun, if you're wearing sunscreen, the vitamin D actually, it's it's like a repellent, that sunscreen. It's not absorbing into your skin. Sunny's also not great for vitamin D absorption because.
Megs: Really?
Rhiannon: Yeah, your eyes need to see the light and need to register that the skin is coming into contact with the sun. So it helps the processes. If you're right, if you're blocking it with your eyes, you're darkening that. Your brain's not registering, it's not sending the signals to your skin to do what it needs to do. So chances are burn might happen easier. Or there's just Very it's less absorption of vitamin D. I don't want to say none, you would still get some, but sunny's have an impact on that as well. So there's my vitamin D little microphone moment.
Megs: My God. my God. I see this is why because it's almost like psychologically your your body realizes that you've got something tinting your view. So you know s you're not If you look at your skin through sunglasses, it's a different shade. And if you look at the sun through sunglasses, it's not as bright. So yeah, it's not just this reminds me literally to go back to when we were fucking cave people. We didn't have fancy sunscreens and we didn't have, but we prepared our bodies exactly what you just said, which is why I spend my winters in the Gold Coast. Because then all
Rhiannon: Mm-hmm.
Megs: year round, mate, I can be out the sun forever and not burn. Like in you know, I'm going to do not take my skin advice, please, because I am not. I but I am sun smart in the way that I'm very well aware of how long I can sit outside for indirect sunlight before I have to go and move into the shade to give my body a break.
Rhiannon: Exactly. And it is really good for you to be out in the sun, bare skin, as at least 30% of your body, so all arms, all legs, just you know, as much as you can so that your body can absorb that. It's really important. Yeah, because we are vitamin D deficient, and then vitamin D is it's more hormone than vitamin in our body. Like it it is so important. For fertility, it is important for the immune system, it is important for our gut health, it is there is it's insane, right? So if we're if we're deficient, no wonder we're also finding ourselves maybe a little bit more sick.
Megs: Mm.
Rhiannon: Vitamin D is really goddamn important. So yeah. It's like just give yourself a little challenge. Like at the start, or like maybe once a year. Medicare will only usually allow you to get vitamin D unpaid for once a year. But like just test yourself each year and then like see how your vitamin D is after sort of each summer and see if it's better than the previous summer based on sun safe habits, but also v vitamin D aware.
Megs: Do know what? We need to overhaul the whole slip slop slap slogan because I feel like
Rhiannon: Thank you.
Megs: this like us, our generation, are going to benefit it negatively in our vitamin D health because we were told the second you get out in the sun, you better be covered in zinc sunscreen and all the things, and you must be covered head to toe like a fucking beekeeper.
Rhiannon: Yeah. Yeah. And there's a responsible way to do it and then there's an irresponsible way to do it. Right. So if if you're if you know you're going to be out in the sun with no shade, whatever, layer the fuck up, people. Like don't be a wicked. But
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: if you can monitor it enough for yourself, so it's only going to be, you know, you can help go through the process and you can do it really intentionally. Beautiful. Please do that, actually. Thank you so much.
Megs: Can't do
Rhiannon: yeah. Let's go. Let's continue. So right, insulin resistance. I actually really want to explain what this is and how it has an impact on and how it essentially can cause PCOS. So when we eat anything that has gluc, that's anything that's going to be turned into glucose. So that's carbohydrates, that's sugar, that's fruit, that's lollies like anything that is not pure protein, pure fat, okay, that's gonna have some level of carbohydrate in it. Our body then only wants a certain amount of that sugar, because it'll all get turned to glucose, and then that's what our body uses for fuel, glucose. And then all that glucose is chilling in our bloodstream, right? But we don't want too like high amounts. So just say we've had a really carb-heavy meal. We've got a lot of glucose that's chilling in our bloodstream. Our pancreas sends, just gets this signal, okay, we've got a lot of sugar here. We need to do something about that. Right? It sends out its little army of insulin. Insulin, again, it's like another Pac-Man. It goes and collects all of the glucose that it needs to, not all of it, but enough to bring the levels down back to like a chill level of maybe like the four mark, right? Again, that's the ideal three or four on a blood test, is the ideal insulin. So it goes and Pac-Mans it, brings it back into liver cells, muscle cells. Okay, and it stores glucose there. If over time the insulin has had to work too hard, for whatever reason, this can genetics come into this, just eating patterns come into this, but it's not always. It's not always you eat too much sugar. It's actually not as simple as that. So many reasons, okay? If for whatever reason insulin has had to work too hard over too long, the cells essentially start to become resistant to insulin. So the insulin that's being sent out from the pancreas, it's not doing as an effective job anymore as it once did. So now it's sending out the same amount, but the brain's still registering, we've still got too much glucose in our bloodstream. So the pancreas sends out more. Okay? So that's why we're s we'll see an elevation on a blood test. Because now we've ideally ordered four, but now we're insulin's still doing a thing. It's still It's moving its way up and up and up and up and up to do the job it once did that it could use this much for. Now it needs this
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: much. So then it starts to increase because it needs to have triple the amount that it used to to do the same job. Okay.
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: The cells are now becoming insulin resistant. That then causes an issue with ovarian signaling all of it. That can push, so high insulin can push up high androgens. So your testosterone, all of that. Okay. So these two work really closely together that high insulin equals high androgens. High androgens equals ovari ovaries are just going a little bit haywire and it's the signalling's not happening properly and ovulation is impacted, therefore your cycles are irregular.
Megs: Right. Can I I don't know
Rhiannon: Does that make sense?
Megs: if this is the right time to ask this particular question, but this is something I read in a book once and it's just like popped back into my head. Is fasting to support insulin resistance and therefore PCOS. What's your
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: your hmm, I'm getting a hmm from you?
Rhiannon: Fasting is an interesting one. Only because it would not be what I would recommend for a PCOS picture, PMOS
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: picture, because the nature of it is we don't want big spikes in insulin. Now, if we fast, the nature of that is there's a small window, we eat lots, so there's constant food going in, which means our insulin's constantly spiking, right? And then like it it you know, we stop eating and then we go back into like this. I'm not explaining it very very well, but I don't love it because we need those consistent meals because even even more than just insulin resistance, it's hormone health. Like our body actually needs a good amount of food. And the last thing you want to be doing is starving yourself. in a in a way like you want to be starting your day with with protein, a good amount of like hearty fats, proteins to r essentially signal to your body and your hormones that everything's safe. Like our the female body is really responsive to safe and unsafe. Okay. You will be able to find people that say fasting epic. If you had a regular cycle, I could talk to you more about fasting. Right? If you have an irregular cycle like the PMOS picture, I'm not interested. I think there's way more we can do dietary wise to get in what your body actually needs. If you had a regular cycle, so if if anyone's listening that has a regular cycle and is interested in fasting, you fast in the first half of your cycle, because that's when your body's the most resilient. You do not fast ovulation into your period. You don't fast in that half of your cycle because your body, you don't want your body thinking you're in a stressful environment because stress will always win over reproduction. So if it's registering stress, your ovulation is going to be impacted in some way. You might look like you're ovulating fine, but your quality of ovulation. Could actually be really impacted. And if you're on a fertility journey, then that can lead to infertility, right? For that particular month. So if you have a regular cycle, then in that, you know, from when period ends for maybe the next week, week and a half, up until just before ovulation, I would say, perfect time to fast and play around. Okay. You'll also find that that's the part of your cycle you're the least hungry. So it's probably going to be easier to fast in that part of your cycle as well. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I've always just heard it. And I like as you know, with my Crohn's stuff, which is completely separate to all of this, it's very different advice. So it's so funny that, you know, it
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: is, it's so never use a one size fits all, especially when it comes to this stuff because it's so personal. It's so personal.
Rhiannon: It's so it's it's so personal. And even like when I get into a little bit more into this, it's it was actually kind of hard for me to keep it so generic because I'm like, yeah, but what's your body doing? Like what's happening for you? So anyway, I hope the insulin resistance stuff made that made sense.
Megs: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
Rhiannon: Awesome. Okay. I also want to say here as well that if you don't find Clear answers in your blood tests. You're like, my my insulin, it's like a six, it's or it's a seven. My androgens are not high, like, but you still got irregular cycles. You need to keep investigating. There is a reason for those irregular cycles, and you might not fit the PMOS picture. You might fit a thyroid picture. Right? PMOS is not the only reason for irregular cycles. There are so many other reasons. So If you I'm gonna really dive into just the insulin resistant part of it because most women with PMS will have insulin resistance. So if that's you, if you've got your bloods back, if it's a pretty clear I'm insulin resistant, you need to start learning about blood sugar and how to regulate that within your body. You can, if you want to, if you've got a spare, I think they're maybe like a hundred bucks, maybe just over a hundred dollars, you can get a continuous glucose monitor, which is what type one diabetics use. I would say type two as well. It's just like your little thing on your arm and it can send a signal to your phone and you can see how your body is responding, how your glucose and all of that is responding for two weeks, I think it stays on, to what you're eating. So if you're going to do that, you keep a diary of everything you eat and you the timing so you can correlate it and you can look at what is spiking you the most. Because that's a thing. If you have insulin resistance, 100% reversible. So if you've got type 2 diabetes, 100% reversible, that's an insulin resistance picture, right? And you can start to see some really big impacts in like 12 weeks. It can be really quick, right? But the whole goal is to keep everything as stable as possible. You don't want insulin spiking. So I'm gonna give you some hacks for how to help that not happen, right? First one is actually not even on my list, but lower the amount of snacking. that you do. Cause every time you're eating, your insulin's going up. Right. So it's have really good quality main meals. If you need a snack, great. Be smart about it. Have a like a like a protein based snack, like actual protein please, not like fake protein. and like veggie, like fibrous things or like nuts, fats, those sorts of things. Great snacks. So, you know, be particular with that. Number two, if you're going to have a carbohydrate heavy meal, like you're gonna have a some pasta, send it. I don't care, do it. I don't want you to not have carbohydrates. That's something I would never say to my PCOS people is cut out carbohydrates. It's definitely what gets told to them, but I would never say that. It's about being smart with your carbohydrates. So if you're gonna have a carbohydrate heavy meal, you're gonna have bowl of pasta, just saying. Ideally, you would have plenty of like fats and proteins with it. Or, and or you can do like a snack beforehand of like some carrots and veggies and like fibrous things. The reason for this is if we think about when we eat, it goes through sort of like our our gut. And then we have this lining, we intestinal lining. Now, if we're Like straight away giving it like orange juice, to say that's a really extreme example because it's really sugar-filled, right? Then there is essentially nothing stopping that orange juice going straight into your bloodstream. It's just on an empty stomach, bang, it's in. If, for example, you had like some veggies, like just some raw veggies you're snacking on, or you had some like three egg omelette or you've even had some like Avo, eggs, sourdough, all of that. And then after that you have your orange juice. Essentially what's happened is the proteins, the fibers, the fats have created like a barrier. Right? So it's
Megs: Tchau.
Rhiannon: not as easy for that sugar to get out of your gut into your bloodstream.
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: Right? So then you would see if you're using a CGM, that continuous glucose monitor, you would actually see in an average person that the spike wouldn't be as significant. It would lower that spike. That's what you want if you've got an insulin resistance picture. You want to keep things as low and steady as possible. Okay. I will say that it's actually if you're if you're really seriously committed to this insulin resistance, all that, I would actually highly suggest a CGM because everybody responds differently. So I
Megs: Mm.
Rhiannon: can give you these hacks, but one of them might not work well. And you, it could be the one that you find the easiest, and you're like, yes, sweet, I'm still doing heaps of stuff for my insulin resistance, but it might not be as effective for you and your makeup, right? Second is move your body as much as possible. possible after eating. Ideally, at least after dinner, because essentially, I mean, the way I look at just my life and other people around me is that's probably the one we move the least after.
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: Breakfast, we're kind of like, cool, let's go on with our day where we're walking around, we're doing things, we're moving our body. Lunch, kind of the same depending on what you're doing in the middle of the day. But dinner, you have dinner, you sit down on the couch and you watch something. You're not Really moving, or you might go and read something. You're very sedentary usually after dinner. The reason for this is because our muscle requires glucose. So our muscle requires the sugar we're eating. So we've just had a big meal, or we've just had food. If we move our body, our muscles are firing. Our muscles are going to eat up that glucose.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: And then our brain doesn't have to send the signal to our pancreas to send out insulin. Right? So our muscles are doing the job. We don't need the insulin to pump out as much that time.
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: Does that make sense?
Megs: It does. I have can I ask another question on that one?
Rhiannon: Yes.
Megs: so you I'm because I'm the earliest eater ever because I I will eat early because I again, it's a Crohn's thing. I l don't like to have anything in my tummy if I can avoid it by the time I go to bed. So I'll typically have d like dinner and by sort of four o'clock ish. and then that way I've got a good solid three to four hours before I'm going to sleep. It how does that affect what we're talking about here in terms of how close you eat before you go to sleep, in terms of letting your body rest and not have to kind of do the extra I don't know. Did so I guess my question actually is, is it just as hard for your pancreas to then go and get all of the sugar whilst you're sleeping? or is it like same, same?
Rhiannon: The pancreas and the insulin, it's pretty quick. So it registers the sugar or the glucose in your system. And if you've moved your body within that half an hour, that's kind of what you want to be doing, even if it's 10 minutes. So it's it's not something that's gonna do the job three hours after you've eaten. It's kind of doing it quite quickly within the hour. Yeah. But I also am like a huge advocate for eating well before you go to bed. And if we're talking fasting, that's probably my favorite recommendation is early dinner. Breakfast whenever is convenient, really. But like ideally the later side, like an eight o'clock. You know, if you're having like a six o'clock, five o'clock dinner, give your body heaps of time to actually do what it needs to do digestion-wise. That's that would be the the only kind of fasting I think I'd recommend for the this kind of picture. Yeah. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah, perfect. Yeah.
Rhiannon: But definitely eating as early like Eating early is is convenient for you, or is is that's possible for you as well. But yeah, if it's super not possible, don't I wouldn't stress there's so many other things that again are move the needle more than a big fasting window from dinner to breakfast. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: Awesome. yeah, so that another one that's really quite interesting and wild that it works is like a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water before meals.
Megs: Wow.
Rhiannon: The science backs that that has an effect on lowering insulin. Wild Wild.
Megs: God, it's like I'm getting like PTSD from where my mum used to like neck a a a tablespoon of it every single morning 'cause straight. And it like the
Rhiannon: Straight? Wrong?
Megs: face that she would make, I'm like, bro, I don't know why you do this. It looks horrible.
Rhiannon: And that's the thing, that's not necessary. Put it in some water. Like, yeah. Even
Megs: Yeah, yeah. Psycho.
Rhiannon: yeah, put it in water. It's way easier to drink. and you can hardly taste it. You don't need much.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: But that has a really potent effect. Again, it might that's why the CGMs are awesome, because you can really see if it makes a big difference for you. Or you might need to do a little bit more apple cider vineyard. Whatever. Play around with it. And the final one is actually if you aren't exercising, one, start moving your body. But on top of that, if you already are exercising and you're doing more cardio based stuff, I need you to switch that. It needs to be resistance. Because muscle is the best, I call it an organ at this point. It is such an important thing to have for all women. But really to help with insulin resistance. Cause like I was saying before, the muscle, if it's moving after food, if you're actually like using your muscle so like car phrases, or you cut laps around your lounge room for 10 minutes. Like that's how simple it can be. Or you just walk up and down your street a couple of times. Whatever you need to do to move your body for 10 to 15 minutes. Literally. Yeah,
Megs: Yeah. Get a walking pad. Those things are legendary.
Rhiannon: right. Anything like that, just getting your muscles firing, that's eating up the glucose. The more muscle you have, the more muscles that are firing, right? And the more glucose is needed into the muscles. So that means your insulin, your pancreas doesn't have to send as much insulin out. And the other cool thing about PMOS girls is we put a muscle really fucking easy. Really fucking because it's the testosterone, people. There is, right? And it is saying that only clicked recently for me. I remember doing like a Back with my roommates when I was in like very early 20s, we all went to the same gym and we did like this 10-week challenge and all that sort of stuff. And right back in the day. And yeah,
Megs: yes. Was it called the Katie Body something by chance?
Rhiannon: that was involved, but not the this particular one. so we did like the classic the testing of like your muscle mass and your bone mass and that that test where you I know everyone's done that. And by the end of the 10 weeks, I had put on Like three kilos of muscle. Right,
Megs: Amazing.
Rhiannon: right. How cool. But my girlfriends had put like had not got anywhere near that number. They'd had awesome fat loss. Awesome fat loss. But they it wasn't as easy for them to put on the muscle. For me, that was thanks to the thing that was making me have no periods. Like, yeah. So there are definite benefits. Another really quick side note is the science is showing that PMOS girls Go through menopause later. Love that. Love that for us. Yeah,
Megs: love that for you. Love that for you.
Rhiannon: so how good. yeah, so so many little things that you can do because again, insulin resistance is completely reversible. And if that's
Megs: Mm-hmm.
Rhiannon: your driver, it's so workable, so workable. Now I want to talk about supplements, like key supplementation, because I also did a bit of a research scroll hole with this. Like what is being recommended? Right? And I've got a yes list and I've got a fucking no list as well. Like, please. Yeah, right. Circa last week's conversation. Like
Megs: Is anything influences promoting?
Rhiannon: now. Okay. Yes to magnesium, specifically. Taking magnesium glycinate, 300 milligrams a day at night, ideally, because it helps with sleep as well and stress and all the things. When you're reading a magnesium label, you're looking at magnesium equivalent. It's usually like the last magnesium section on the labels. It's equivalent magnesium, and it'll usually, depending on the tablet you're taking or the powder, often it's like 150. So if it's a tablet they usually sit around 150, you take two. Okay. As a general base, everybody would massively benefit from magnesium. Okay. That helps with insulin signaling. It helps with so many things. Nervous system, that's often a part of PMOS as well. General nervous system, all the things.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Vitamin D, if you're low, so I would say if you're below 70. I would be recommending like it just 2000 IU. So if you're good doing like a like a spray, that's often like two sprays, right? but again,
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: it it says it all on the label. Just read it like one spray equals 1000 IU is usually like one tablet or one spray or whatever. The most effective in the research for PMOS is something called inositol. This is incredible for not just blood sugar. It's a huge in the blood sugar insulin game, but also it has a direct impact on the quality of your eggs. Right? So it's doing like that's only two things. It does so many things. So it's actually such a good quality, kind of all-rounder supplement to be taking, but specifically for insulin resistance. You want to be taking four to six grams per day. Okay, it's a larger one. So, and that can be split between two doses, morning and night. So, like two to three times two, right? And then something else called NAC, N anacetylcysteine. This is also going to come into the endoconversation as well. Really awesome. And the science is saying it has big impact on the pain in the endo. side of things. You want to be doing at least 800 milligrams per day with this one. This is big to help with liver clearance
Megs: Well.
Rhiannon: and all the things there. And again, if we've got high levels of hormones like testosterone, we need to be able to effectively get rid of them. Okay, and that happens through our liver. If we've got low SHBG like I was talking about, then that's not happening properly. We need to work on the liver. So a really quick easy supplement is NAC. with that. again, super generic and you would find that sort of stuff anyway. But again, for you, if you're wanting more like particular, like eyes on your case, because you might need these, but you might need something else that's going work even better because something in particular is happening in in your stuff, you know? So start here, but also it's just a really good idea to get that one-on-one help as well.
Megs: Sally.
Rhiannon: The no list. I might pe hm so I have strong feelings about my no list, but often people like a a lot of naturopaths would disagree with me. So this is very
Megs: Right.
Rhiannon: yeah, this is just this isn't me. Okay. The first thing that comes up everywhere, I'm just sort of write a note to remind me, that comes up is berberine. Berberine is a herb. Well it's a part of a herb. And it is a really, it's really good with insulin resistance and blood sugar regulation and weight loss and all of that, but it's also a really potent antimicrobial. Which means it's acting on the gut and it starts to strip away microbes. That can be good for a short amount of time. Okay, because we might have some harmful bacteria that's having a great old time in there, causing some havoc. But too long on something like berberine, not good. Because it starts to act kind of like a bit of an antibiotic. It starts to strip the good shit too.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Right? We need a good microbiome for good insulin signaling. Right? There is such a big connection with the gut for every single freaking thing. So we do not want to be taking something like berberine long term, I would say 10 weeks max, and then cut it. If it's not fixing anything, doing anything, pivot. Do something else.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: Right? spearmint is something else. Like I love me a herb, spearmint's delicious, but they're saying people are saying that spearmint's great to help get rid of this this facial hair and help to lower androgens. But people are recommending spearmint tea.
Megs: No.
Rhiannon: That's not enough. Like if we're going to use spearmint, I'm going to give it to you in a herbal formula that's potent and it's
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: concentrated. But if you want to drink spearmint tea like three cups a day, go for it because you enjoy it. But I would not be suggesting that that's going to be like the silver bullet. Right. A lot of people a lot of Ts are starting to come out with like, you know, the PMOS Ts and PC OSTs and right.
Megs: Thank you.
Rhiannon: Yeah. I don't I was talking I was actually having a conversation with another naturopath friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. And because we've both come across this other this other tea. I don't know the name of it or anything, but it was bizarre. I'm like none of well talking like none of these herbs make sense. Like what what? Like it was so
Megs: For God's sake. Of course they don't.
Rhiannon: and like how much does that tea cost?
Megs: N no shit.
Rhiannon: Like right? It pisses me off. Anyway. Another one, probiotics. Probiotics, probiotics, too general. Way too general. If you're gonna go and take a probiotic, I would prefer you to go to have probiotic rich foods, like your sauerkrauts, your kim cheese, your fermented anything. Anything fermented. Have that. It's gonna be way better than any random generic probiotic you're gonna get from the chemist. Please don't get your probiotics from the chemist, unless it's activated probiotics. That's a good brand.
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: but even then, I'm like, is it actually what you need? Maybe not. You know? And then the last one is another herb that I did touch on last week, but it's called Vitex. This is so sneakily, maybe not sneakily, but it is so often seen in so many PMOS supplements, like herbal concoction tablets. If it didn't have the Vitex in there, I would be all for it. But it's the Vitex and I'm like, never take it. Because the nature of the hormone levels, Vitex can essentially push something even further out. So something called lutinizing hormone, which is often already elevated in PMOS, Vitex can make that even more elevated. Because people see Vitex and it's a lot of the marketing around it is regulating cycles. Yes, it can do that. But for a very specific person, if someone came to me and they're like, I had epic. To the day cycles, and then this particular event happened and now they haven't been the same since. So an event being like maybe a stressful event or something like that that haven't been the same since. Perfect candidate for something like Vitex. Right? If everything was normal, something happened that was weird, and then since it's been dysregulated, I would go down the Vitex route because it helps just re-regulate some things. But if their periods have never been regular, If we've got a whole lot of other shit we're dealing with, Vitex is not on my list at all. Right? Vitex is also called Chase Tree. So Chase Tree, Vitex, same thing. Look out for that. If you're taking like a multi-something herbal supplement for PCOS, just check it doesn't have Vitex on it. Yeah.
Megs: And maybe don't take something that is aren't priceline shelves sold by a celebrity that's designed for PCLS or PMOS or anything for that matter.
Rhiannon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hot tip. Please don't do that. yes. So if you have nailed your root cause, you should be seeing results within 12 weeks.
Megs: Wow.
Rhiannon: Right? If you've nailed it, if you like clear insulin resistance, I can really see that. Okay, I'm gonna implement everything Rihanna has just talked about. That sometimes, just that dietary lifestyle adjustment. Can actually be enough. You might not even need some of those supplements. Those supplements are going to help, but they're never going to outdo everything else. They can definitely help. But make sure that your foundations are bang on first. Or at least you're you're moving in the right direction with that, right? They don't have to be perfect. But you should start to see in three months some shifts with the regularity of your cycles, all that. If you're not, you need to go back to the drawing board. Because you might not have one root cause. You might have a couple of things happening. And that's where, yeah, it can start to get a little bit more complicated. And that's where I have I have a a period review in my whole ecosystem of things. So that's what I would select if you're sort of in this phase where you're like, I've got my bloods, I don't really get it. Like they're not quite outside the the ranges, but I've got irregular periods and this is happening and or I've been trying to fix it based on what you I've just said, blah blah blah. But things aren't changing, you need to book in a period review because there's something else happening. And like screw wasting more time. Like just get the help, someone who's expert in this, and they can just tell you. So you can also take the load off yourself. I found that so much in my journey. Like I at some point I actually needed to give it over to somebody else. Like, you tell me what I need to do. I'm sick of this just constantly being in my head. So yeah, that's what I recommend for that. That's the PCOS stuff. That took a long time.
Megs: And here we are at the 52 minute mark. No, I think this is important and I definitely didn't want to rush it because I feel like even just listening to you explain what you did just then, it can be a number of things. And if you're some and like I put myself in somebody's shoes that is going like experiencing these things and is just not even sure where to start, maybe they went and saw a doctor and didn't really get heard or they didn't feel
Rhiannon: Mm.
Megs: heard. And they're like, then I don't have a you know, and it's like I've got all these things, like how do I do this? And that fatigue you're talking about, where you're like exhausted with yourself because you're like, My body's betraying me and these things are happening and
Rhiannon: Yep.
Megs: I don't know why. yeah, I think it's really important to to flesh all of this out. And I think another thing which should be really helpful for listeners as well, if they're sort of like like sitting here listening to you and thinking, shit, like I've I've got this and I've sort of got this, and it's like I think your advice, and I won't, you know, put words in your mouth, but it's sort of like if this is what you're expecting, just go anyway. Just seek a second opinion if you got shut down the first time, speak to someone like you, and don't be like, well, I don't have all of them, so I probably don't have PMOS. Like you like you said, it might not be, it might be the cause of something else. If your body is doing different things that it shouldn't be doing, there is a cause, right? So would your advice be, I guess, to start this off if you're brand, brand new, starting off in this journey,
Rhiannon: I am.
Megs: what is your recommendation for listeners?
Rhiannon: My recommendation is get somebody who's a professional in your corner straight away. Because otherwise you're gonna go down a million and five rabbit holes based on what Instagram and TikTok are saying, from really possibly well-meaning people who have gone through their own journey, they're like, this worked brilliantly for me. Probably not gonna do the same for you. You're a different human. You're not them. Okay. You might not actually have PMOS. You might have been told by your doctor that you do based on your symptoms, and that's the umbrella that they give you. But have they checked your thyroid? And have they re interpreted that properly? You know, so I if you're just coming to the conclusion now, you're like, fuck, actually I do have irregular periods. I it was just normal for me. I probably should look into this. Just see someone straight away. Like straight away. Because
Megs: Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: it's going to cut your time way down. And you're actually possibly going to be able to get results way sooner than you would if you were trying to navigate it yourself based on social media and your own research in Chat GPT, whatever else it is. Yeah. There
Megs: Yeah.
Rhiannon: is there is benefit to working with a real human who is working with just you.
Megs: Yes.
Rhiannon: Like what's happening for you, the person in front of them.
Megs: Yeah. And like you say, you know, everyone is so like individualized with all of our treatment. Like you and what I love and I love, love, love people posting their success stories because it gives those of us who maybe aren't there yet hope. And you're like, okay, look, you've done this and you've done this, but you know, following their steps to the letter, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, their path, you may not get the same result. In fact, it might actually be too detrimental to your health. So I think I I never like I I love jumping on a trend, don't get me wrong. But I think, yeah, with things like this I've really learnt over the years that your body is so unique and you can be standing next to like yourself and somebody with the exact same quote unquote condition. But it's not apples for apples. Like you got plenty of other shit going on that makes our body so different.
Rhiannon: Absolutely. Absolutely. Like if I like I have had insulin resistant PCOS, if I had have only gone down that road, then a lot of my healing would not have been done. Because yes, that was my major root cause, but it's not my only one. Right? So that's yeah, it's it can be super duper simple. But it can also be quite complex. It just depends on the person. I hope for everyone that it's just as easy as doing the things that I just mentioned, taking a few of the easy supplements, and you are good to go. Unfortunately, not always, which does suck. Yeah.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. It does. And I and I think just to echo your point as well around the time that you because I think that's the biggest thing with anybody with a chronic illness, like I'm like the time I've lost in this health journey and the time it took me to get to a certain place and the time, the time, the time, right? So I would do anything to kind of get that time back. So now I'm so different when my body does so actually, do you know what? That's not true, because I literally gaslit myself for like twenty four hours before I went to the hospital on the weekend. So clearly I still have some work to do there, but you know, you you with understanding that yes, it sucks right now and it feels like such a shit time. Like three months, you think, my god, it's three months, but in real in relative terms, if you look back now, bro, we're in August. Like tell me where the hell this year's gone. Like three months on a healing journey, especially when you start to feel one percent better, it will fly and you'll be addicted to healing yourself.
Rhiannon: Absolutely. And that time is going to pass anyway.
Megs: Exactly.
Rhiannon: Like, do you want to be in three months' time still as confused in the weeds of it as you were three months ago, or you actually want to see some progress, even if that's just a little bit of progress? Like, absolutely.
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Rhiannon: okay, now quickly let's do some endo stuff. okay, with the endo stuff, there is a lot of new if we're talking like from the start. Of diagnosis, it is there is a lot of new stuff coming out. Like historically, it was the only way you can get a piece of not a piece of endodiagnosis is laparoscopy, right? You have to go under the knife to get this diagnosis. That is beginning to change with other imagery, like specialized ultrasounds and symptomology pictures. Like people are essentially being given Diagnoses based on just their case, as in their symptoms. And yeah, which I think I would ask the question of what is the label going to give you. Is
Megs: U
Rhiannon: I I kind of think that it's a good thing sometimes to have an endo label, especially if it gets to the point where you got to, like you would have only ever been able to have your hysterectomy because you have an endometriosis label. Right. And if it gets to that point, you kind of want to have that backup of a label. Right. But you don't have to have an endometriosis diagnosis in order to heal your period pain. Even if it is endo, right?
Megs: Mm. Yeah.
Rhiannon: And yeah, there's there's a bit there. So first of all, I always go.
Megs: Well my thoughts, given we're like an hour in now, should we make this literally a whole PCOS PMOS episode that just gets to live on its own and has its own special place in the world? 'Cause I love the idea of yeah, the PMS
Rhiannon: Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. And then next week we can do endo and then you can be a bit more telling your story. Yeah, I like it, because we could go for two hours.
Megs: Yeah. I re Well, I love it. I just I I wanna make sure like 'cause i I guess if you're like one or either or you're sort of like, Well, I only care about the Endo stuff or only care the PCOS stuff, you know what? We're gonna do you a favor. We're going to put it all in one for you. Now all of this So it will transcribe and I'll do it a bit differently this time because I want to make sure that everything that Rand has just said is clear in the show notes and it's not just a summary. So I'll actually pop a transcript of this for you guys. So if you want to go in maybe with a even a checklist of of things, you can chuck it in ChatGPT, I'm sure, and say summarize this in a whatever. Like use the transcript to your advantage so that you can go and find out this information for your if you're interested in it. and of course we'll pop her socials in the show notes as well. But go check out the show notes if you're actually interested in this because I think this like literally pragmatically will kind of take you through the steps on how to, you know, take the first step even in your journey to yeah, to improving improving your health. So thank you for your everything tonight. My goodness me. What an episode. I I it's
Rhiannon: You're welcome. Yeah.
Megs: just it's wild to me that I am so in this world and yeah I learn so much from you every single week. I'm like Shit. That's wild. So
Rhiannon: it's so it's so nice to hear. I think sometimes like I forget how much the average person doesn't know because it's just my world. So yeah, that's nice to
Megs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rhiannon: hear.
Megs: No, it definitely is. So we'll put all the goodness and literally the transcript straight in the show notes so you can go and download that and yeah, take out of it those supplements, and anything else that we've talked about. And of course we would love to hear how you've gotten and how you're going.
Rhiannon: Yes.
Megs: and yes, so next week we'll talk ex we'll talk about endometriosis and maybe even we might like like dip into the adenomyiosis kind of thing as well because they
Rhiannon: Yeah.
Megs: if you're up for that because yeah, I think
Rhiannon: Yeah.
Megs: having both of those suckers makes them not a fun time.
Rhiannon: Mm. Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Megs: Let's do it. All right. Thank you, my love.
Rhiannon: K
Megs: I'll see you next week for our fourth episode.
Rhiannon: Yay, sounds good.
Megs: Sorry to jump in over the top of you, but
